dropuser

Name

Synopsis

Description

dropuser removes an existing
PostgreSQL user. Only superusers
and users with the CREATEROLE privilege
can remove PostgreSQL users. (To
remove a superuser, you must yourself be a superuser.)

dropuser is a wrapper around
the SQL command DROP ROLE. There is no effective
difference between dropping users via this utility and via other
methods for accessing the server.

Options

dropuser accepts the
following command-line arguments:

username

Specifies the name of the PostgreSQL user to be removed. You
will be prompted for a name if none is specified on the
command line and the -i/--interactive option is used.

-e--echo

Echo the commands that dropuser generates and sends to the
server.

-i--interactive

Prompt for confirmation before actually removing the
user, and prompt for the user name if none is specified on
the command line.

-V--version

Print the dropuser
version and exit.

--if-exists

Do not throw an error if the user does not exist. A
notice is issued in this case.

-?--help

Show help about dropuser command line arguments, and
exit.

dropuser also accepts the
following command-line arguments for connection parameters:

-h host--host=host

Specifies the host name of the machine on which the
server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is
used as the directory for the Unix domain socket.

-p port--port=port

Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file
extension on which the server is listening for
connections.

-U username--username=username

User name to connect as (not the user name to drop).

-w--no-password

Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires
password authentication and a password is not available by
other means such as a .pgpass
file, the connection attempt will fail. This option can be
useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present
to enter a password.

-W--password

Force dropuser to
prompt for a password before connecting to a database.

This option is never essential, since dropuser will automatically prompt for
a password if the server demands password authentication.
However, dropuser will
waste a connection attempt finding out that the server
wants a password. In some cases it is worth typing
-W to avoid the extra connection
attempt.

Environment

PGHOSTPGPORTPGUSER

Default connection parameters

This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the
environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 31.14).

Diagnostics

In case of difficulty, see DROP
ROLE and psql for discussions of potential
problems and error messages. The database server must be running
at the targeted host. Also, any default connection settings and
environment variables used by the libpq front-end library will apply.

Examples

To remove user joe from the default
database server:

$ dropuser joe

To remove user joe using the server
on host eden, port 5000, with
verification and a peek at the underlying command: